[BigDaddy]

When does early game end? Maybe that is what I'm missing.


Here, I'll do 2:

Ulm 120 50 10
If you start near Ulm and he send knights up in your shizzle it's really going to suck, and if you're Ulm you can count on sending knights up in his shizzle really sucking for him. Your mages rock and each can make themselves a squad of clockwork horrors as soon as its reasearched. To me, they, as a nation, don't go anywhere, and they lean heavily on your pretender to coddle their units, despite their oft tauted forge bonus. They fall off end-game without a doubt. All in all, there are a lot of things I'd rather have on my border turn 3 than black plates.